On March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New J ersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Stanley and Rose Ferg uson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simult aneous and independent fictional paths. Four Fergusons made of the same genetic material, four boys who are the same boy, will go on to lead four parallel and e ntirely different lives. Loves and friendships and intellectual passions contras t. Chapter by chapter, the rotating narratives evolve into an elaborate dance of inner worlds enfolded within the outer forces of history as, one by one, the in timate plot of each Ferguson's story rushes on across the tumultuous and fractur ed terrain of mid-twentieth-century America. A boy grows up - again and again an d again. As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ev er written, 4 3 2 1 is an unforgettable tour de force, the crowning work of this masterful writer's extraordinary career.